China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Saturday that value-added industrial output grew by just 6.9% in August year -over-year, down from 9.0% in July, representing the weakest growth streak since December 2008 and dealing a harsh blow to companies and economies heavily dependent on China.

BNP Paribas strategists wrote in a note that the figures highlight more “deep-rooted problems” in the country’s economy, while Barclays economists lowered their forecast for gross domestic product growth this year by 0.2 percentage point to 7.2%. They also cut their third- and fourth-quarter GDP growth outlook by 0.3% and 0.4%, to 7.1% and 7.0%, respectively.

Elsewhere, the market’s attention Monday was already firmly centered on Thursday’s Scottish independence referendum, the outcome of which — strategists have broadly come to agree — is too close to call.

Over the weekend, and in a last-ditch attempt to gain support, Alex Salmond, leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party, and Alistair Darling, head of the pro-U.K. Better Together campaign, made back-to-back television appearances.

“Even if Scotland votes against independence, the recent experience has probably reminded investors that political issues can suddenly spring from being a tail risk to center stage,” Citigroup economist Michael Saunders wrote in a note published late Friday.

Deutsche Bank said on Friday that a vote in favor of independence “would go down in history as a political and economic mistake as large as Winston Churchill’s decision in 1925 to return the pound to the Gold Standard, or the failure of the Federal Reserve to provide sufficient liquidity to the U.S. banking system, which we now know brought on the Great Depression in the U.S.”

On Monday, the British pound
GBPUSD, -0.0159%
which early last week plummeted to a 10-month low after a poll showing a razor-thin lead for those in favor of ending the 300-year union, was trading very marginally lower against the U.S. dollar at $1.6260.

Elsewhere in currency markets, the Swedish krona
USDSEK, +0.7625%
edged lower against the euro and dollar after Sweden’s Social Democrat Leader Stefan Lofven defeated incumbent Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in parliamentary elections on Sunday, signaling the return of a left-leaning government after eight years in opposition.

The ruble
USDRUB, -1.0097%
hit a fresh all-time low against the greenback, weighed by the U.S. decision on Friday to join the European Union in expanding sanctions to target Russian Arctic and shale-oil projects and further limit financing to state-controlled companies.

The new measures will prevent Western energy firms from providing technology and services — other than financial services — to five Russian energy majors’ oil projects in the Arctic, deep offshore fields and shale, the U.S. Treasury Department said Friday.

Moscow’s Micex stock exchange, and the dollar-traded RTS, largely brushed off the move, to trade 0.2% higher and 0.1% lower respectively in early trade Monday, but the ruble proved less resilient, enabling the dollar to scale the 38-ruble level.

“The sanctions are likely to have a negative effect on an already weak growth outlook for Russia,” Barclays economists wrote in a note, adding that they might also weigh on the euro area outlook, the euro exchange rate, and even fuel expectations of more European Central Bank stimulus action.

In the U.S, the S&P 500
SPX, +0.34%
was expected to open 0.2% lower, with investors casting their attention to meetings scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, at which Federal Reserve officials will discuss whether to shift their guidance on interest rates.

Deutsche Bank wrote in a note that the meetings could mark a pivotal point for U.S. monetary policy.

In commodity markets, gold
US:GCZ4
was trading 0.33% higher on the day at $1,235.60 per troy ounce. Brent crude
UK:LCOX4
was 0.19% lower at $97.78 per barrel.

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